WebProNews » Architecturehttp://www.webpronews.com
Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, & BusinessTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:49:41 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.1Here’s A 3D Printed Robot That Can 3D Print Objectshttp://www.webpronews.com/heres-a-3d-printed-robot-that-can-3d-print-objects-2013-12
http://www.webpronews.com/heres-a-3d-printed-robot-that-can-3d-print-objects-2013-12#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 20:52:59 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=298106In 2013, we saw the rise of the 3D printed robot. Now students are looking to complete the cycle by making a 3D printed robot that can double as a 3D printer.

A group of students in San Francisco have created a new robot that they call Geoweaver. It’s a hexapod robot that rolls around on wheels and is equipped with a glue gun extruder. When fed instructions, it can roll around on a large surface and print structures that would not be possible on a regular 3D printer.

So, why is this significant? One of the greatest challenges facing 3D printers today is that 3D printed objects can only be as big as the bed. It’s not been that bad for those who only want to print small objects, but what about the future of 3D printing? All of the concepts available today for 3D printed housing show a large 3D printer overtop a large bed as it applies concrete layer by layer onto the bedrock. While such a method is certainly plausible for smaller houses, what about larger and oddly shaped structures? That’s where things like the Geoweaver comes in.

By attaching the extruder to a robot, 3D printers could one day be capable of creating larger, more complex objects. Not only will 3D printers be able to build up, but they would be able to build out as well. Of course, such a dream is still a ways off when you consider the resources necessary to build an autonomous 3D printer that can accommodate large objects, like mansions. Not to mention, most 3D printer materials still require a heated bed and heating a large area would be prohibitively expensive.

Regardless of all that, however, the Geoweaver is a solid concept that can only improve as more work is done on it. In fact, the team is already envisioning a larger Geoweaver that can take information from GPS satellites to pinpoint print locations across large landscapes on the ground.

To see more, check out the video below:

If that all looks good to you, you can build your very own Geoweaver today. The Instructables page will tell you everything you need to know about building your own 3D printing robot.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/heres-a-3d-printed-robot-that-can-3d-print-objects-2013-12/feed1Google Maps Is Exposing People To Historic Parliament Buildings In Europehttp://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-is-exposing-people-to-historic-parliament-buildings-in-europe-2013-09
http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-is-exposing-people-to-historic-parliament-buildings-in-europe-2013-09#commentsThu, 12 Sep 2013 06:03:36 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=260569Technology is a pretty awesome thing sometimes. Even if you’re one of the members of the newer generations that have grown up with technology touching almost every facet of your life, some things about its feats and possibilities will always be breath-taking. For this author, Google street view and global maps are a few of such things. The ability to travel to almost any place on Earth without leaving one’s seat is such an amazing opportunity to have at one’s finger tips. And the beauty lies in the swirl of both simplicity and complexity, blending in to one; one can use Google street view to get visual directions to the farmer’s market, or go backpacking across Europe in an afternoon. The possibilities are endless and amazing each time.

Google street view is adding on to their amazing list of places to visit from your computer screen, with the most amazing addition being the seat of France’s National Assembly, the Palais Bourbon, which is now available for anyone to look at and pay a virtual visit to. The building is full of precious artwork, architecture, and decor that is now free for the world’s public to peruse and explore.

Curious minds and eager visitors can also make their virtual rounds to the European Union’s 42 parliaments, where architecture, information, decor, and artwork are all compiled in to one place. Visitors can also explore the Google Cultural Institute, where still more goodies and knowledge await the eager minds of the masses.

Technology truly is a beautiful thing, especially when applied to such pursuits as opening doors to knowledge and experiences that have never before been so accessible. In the most sincere way, this author is amazed and what a time it is to be alive. Be sure to go check out these awesome opportunities; just be prepared to spend about two hours on the process.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-is-exposing-people-to-historic-parliament-buildings-in-europe-2013-09/feed0Skyscraper Melting Cars In London, Citizens Bewarehttp://www.webpronews.com/skyscraper-melting-cars-in-london-citizens-beware-2013-09
http://www.webpronews.com/skyscraper-melting-cars-in-london-citizens-beware-2013-09#commentsWed, 04 Sep 2013 02:46:33 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=257540It was recently reported that a skyscraper in London, England has been known to melt cars. When parked close enough to the building, certain people have reported parts of their cars melting due to the heat being reflected off of the mirror-like surface. It is certainly an odd type of occurrence and one that many people might not even be likely to believe unless they were to see it for themselves. Maybe with this interesting information and knowing how much the sun is reflecting off of this building, the architect’s could use it to their advantage and produce energy with it somehow.

The architect behind the project of building the skyscraper, is Rafael Vinoly, born in Uruguay. It is being developed by Canary Wharf and Land Securities in the city’s insurance district. It is unclear why, but it has been said that this is a temporary problem and it was expected to happen for a certain part of the year. According to The Huffington Post, the shape acts as a lens that reflects intense beams of sunlight for roughly two hours during the day during about two to three weeks out of the year. Developers are currently looking for permanent solutions, although it seems that a simple “no parking” sign would work well enough for now. The official plan is for the companies to build a temporary scaffold screen at street level in order to minimize the problem.

The building is very large and with curved exterior walls, it is the same type of model that is used in the design for some solar power plants. It is 38 stories tall and is known locally as the “Walkie Talkie.”

Martin Lindsay, the owner of a jaguar, has become a victim to the monstrous building, after melting his car on Thursday afternoon. After leaving his car for only about two hours, he returned to find parts of his car, including the wing mirror and badge to be completely melted. In a statement to BBC News, he freaked out by saying “You can’t believe something like this would happen.” He then went on to say that there needs to be something done about this. He has been repaid for the damages caused to his vehicle, although hopefully no more incidents like this one will happen after attention is brought to the issue. While it is very odd and questionable that something like this could happen, developers have made a statement saying that they will work to find a solution as soon as possible and prevent the same thing from happening to more people.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/skyscraper-melting-cars-in-london-citizens-beware-2013-09/feed8Antoni Gaudí Gets a Wacky Google Doodlehttp://www.webpronews.com/antoni-gaudi-gets-a-wacky-google-doodle-2013-06
http://www.webpronews.com/antoni-gaudi-gets-a-wacky-google-doodle-2013-06#commentsTue, 25 Jun 2013 12:59:11 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=237833Today, Google is honoring Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, best known as the leader of the Catalan Modernism movement. He was born in Reus, in Spain’s Catalonia region in 1852.

Today’s Doodle is pretty abstract, as some people who visit the Google homepage today are surely doing a double-take. The Doodle celebrates what would we the artist’s 161st birthday. He died in 1926 after being struck by a tram.

Much of Gaudí’s work exists in Barcelona, including the Casa Vicens, Park Güell, Güell Pavilions, Palau Güell, Casa Calvet, Casa Batlló, and last but not least, the Sagrada Familia. He also has works in Tangier, León, and Sitges.

Casa Milà in Barcelona

Antoni Gaudí’s most famous work has to be the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, better known as simply the Sagrada Família, a giant Roman Catholic church in the middle of Barcelona. Gaudí worked on the church nearly his entire career, beginning in 1883. The church is actually incomplete – when Gaudí died in 1926 it was less than 1/4th finished.

Sagrada Família was consecrated and made a minor basilica by Pope Benedict back in 2010. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of seven total designed by Gaudí.

Sagrada Família in Barcelona

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/antoni-gaudi-gets-a-wacky-google-doodle-2013-06/feed0Frank Gehry Is Designing the New Facebook Engineering Buildinghttp://www.webpronews.com/frank-gehry-is-designing-the-new-facebook-engineering-building-2012-08
http://www.webpronews.com/frank-gehry-is-designing-the-new-facebook-engineering-building-2012-08#commentsFri, 24 Aug 2012 20:00:16 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=188799]]>Facebook is expanding, and they have just announced that the expansion is being designed by one of the modern icons of architecture.

Frank Gehry will be behind the new addition to Facebook’s Menlo Park campus. You may know Gehry as the guy who built the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A.

Gehry, who is known for his ability to create beautiful yet functional spaces, will bring that talent to the new Engineering building. Facebook says that it will be able to house 3,400 employees when completed.

“It will be a large, one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse. Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks that can be quickly shuffled around as teams form and break apart around projects. There will be cafes and lots of micro-kitchens with snacks so that you never have to go hungry. And we’ll fill the building with break-away spaces with couches and whiteboards to make getting away from your desk easy,” says Everett Katigbak, Facebook’s Environmental Design Manager.

The outside will feature an eco-friendly space filled with trees and a rooftop garden on top of the structure.

Employees will be able to travel between the current campus and the expansion via underground tunnel (cool).

Facebook says they plan to break ground on the addition in early 2013.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/frank-gehry-is-designing-the-new-facebook-engineering-building-2012-08/feed13D Printer Creates The Perfect Sand Sculpturehttp://www.webpronews.com/3d-printer-creates-the-perfect-sand-sculpture-2012-08
http://www.webpronews.com/3d-printer-creates-the-perfect-sand-sculpture-2012-08#commentsWed, 08 Aug 2012 16:30:18 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=185987You may recall a promising 3D printing project from a few weeks ago that hopes to build houses in less than 24 hours. It’s called Contour Crafting and it would use a giant 3D printer that would put down all the layers of a house from the foundation to the roof with just a simple 3D printer set up. Contour Crafting may have a bit of competition now from the equally amazing Stone Spray.

Stone Spray is a 3D printing system that combines sand and soil to build architectural designs. The project is headed by a group of students at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. While you could build a killer sandcastle with the technology, it’s far more ambitious than that. They hope to one day construct buildings and bridges using the material.

Their ambitions may just be realized, and soon, thanks to the materials they use. It only uses sand and soil, but the resulting combination is as strong as concrete. It also has one trump card that other 3D printing systems have yet to implement. It can print in multiple directions so complex designs are entirely possible.

Like all ambitious 3D printing projects, this is still in the small object stage. They can’t start implementing the technology on a large scale just yet, but it’s coming. Just like Contour Crafting, Stone Spray may help build houses in low-income communities and third-world countries. By eliminating the risk posed by regular construction and requiring only the energy created by solar panels, we might just have the first renewable construction system on our hands.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/3d-printer-creates-the-perfect-sand-sculpture-2012-08/feed2Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: 126th Birthday Celebrated with Google Doodlehttp://www.webpronews.com/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe-126th-birthday-google-doodle-2012-03
http://www.webpronews.com/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe-126th-birthday-google-doodle-2012-03#commentsTue, 27 Mar 2012 13:00:32 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=127771German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (commonly called Mies) is connected to the phrase “less is more.” One of the truly influential figures in modern architecture, Mies called his simplistic but elegant designs “skin and bones” architecture. Today’s Google Doodle, a Googlized version of one of Mies’ most enduring works, celebrates his 126th birthday.

Mies was born in 1886, and began his architectural career in 1908 when he became an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens. There, he worked side by side with other modern architecture pioneers Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. In the 1930s, he worked as the last director of the Bauhaus, the “German School of Building” that was actually opened by Gropius.

In 1937, he came to the United States and wast tapped to head the architecture department at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). He worked from Chicago for his whole 31-year career in America. Here’s what the IIT has to say about his vision, on his birthday:

Mies van der Rohe believed that architecture should expressed the essence of its civilization – that the same things guiding our lives should build our homes, museums and offices. His buildings speak to our hope for simplicity, shaping our lived environment, and in doing so, illuminating life itself. Today we celebrate this legacy.

Today’s Google Doodle is modeled after one of his most famous buildings – Crown Hall. It is currently the home to the College of Architecture at his beloved IIT. The building encapsulates Mies’ style – a 220′ by 120′ rectangle with a sparse steel frame and glass panes. The top floor is one giant space, what he called a “universal space.”

It was completed in 1956 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe-126th-birthday-google-doodle-2012-03/feed1Google Maps Now Has 45° Views For Some Citieshttp://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-45-2012-01
http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-45-2012-01#commentsTue, 24 Jan 2012 16:28:57 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=91785Google Maps is an amazing tool for inspecting the lay-out of cities and using the satellite view gives you a realistic visualization of what the city actually looks like. However, the 90° view of building-tops causes everything in the map to be indistinguishable and, were it not for the labels, it’s doubtful you’d ever see a building you recognize.

Google’s remedied that problem (to an extent) with the addition of 45° views to 24 cities (14 in the United States, 7 throughout the rest of the world) that give you a much more recognizable view of the cityscapes. With this new 45° imagery, Maps users can now see the architecture of buildings with much more stunning detail. For instance, let’s compare the 45° and 90° views of Ulm Minster, a Gothic cathedral in Ulm, Germany. Here it is seen at 90°:

And here it is in greater splendor (at the same magnification) at 45°:

The difference in quality is jarring. Like, how did any of us make any functional use of Google Maps in that 90° rendering? The beauty and depth of that cathedral is breath-taking in the 45° angle, whereas that 90° angle looks like the remains of some boot-squashed techno-beetle.

You can still toggle between 45° and 90° via the menu in the upper-right corner (but after demonstrating the dramatic difference above, why would you want to?). Google seems to know that you will want to primarily use the 45° view because if a city is included in the update, the satellite view will automatically switch to the 45° view once you’ve zoomed in far enough. Also, before you get ahead of yourself, you won’t be able to orbit around objects – you only get one 45° view of cities.

Satellite view on Maps, have to zoom in so far before it automatically toggles to 90 degree to 45 degree view. You can adjust this in the options menu that hangs in the upper-right corner of the map.

If this is the direction that Google Maps is going with their their near-earth satellite views, then I can’t until they’re able to expand the imagery to cover the rest of the planet.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-45-2012-01/feed0You Could Be Incepted Soonhttp://www.webpronews.com/you-could-be-incepted-soon-2011-12
http://www.webpronews.com/you-could-be-incepted-soon-2011-12#commentsWed, 21 Dec 2011 21:55:36 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=85645We’ve already said that it’s only a matter of time before we’re just uploading knowledge into our noggins in order to learn everything from origami to piano so the next logical step in humanity’s quest to be “just like in the movies” would be a scourge of mind-thievery.

In other words, cue the intense music because researchers at Yale think it’s only a matter of time before people are able to use lucid dreams to not just learn abilities but possibly invade the dreams of others.

According to The Daily Mail, Yale researcher Robert Morgan thinks these regions of the brain can be accessed for improved social control and decision-making. “We know that by engaging circuits in the brain we can change its architecture,” Morgan says. The Daily Mail continues:

Being in command of dreams opens up opportunities to manipulate them for learning and training – although it may not be quite as precise as learning to play the violin while asleep. Instead, ‘lucid dreamers’ can control areas of their brain to open up and ‘learn’ while they sleep. What’s more, it seems that merely being a lucid dreamer seems to give you an advantage.

So as the subtitle above suggests, take a hint from Mr. Jack Donaghy:

Because the next time you doze off on a plane you may wake up with a stirring hunger for some kung-fu robbery. Be careful, readers.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/you-could-be-incepted-soon-2011-12/feed0Apple’s New Campus Knocked as “Retrograde Cocoon”http://www.webpronews.com/apples-new-campus-knocked-as-retrograde-cocoon-2011-09
http://www.webpronews.com/apples-new-campus-knocked-as-retrograde-cocoon-2011-09#commentsMon, 12 Sep 2011 16:01:27 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=75795Apple’s proposed new headquarters in Cupertino, California is a giant 2.8 million square foot ring, complete with state-of-the-art curved glass windows and a massive emphasis on landscaping. In his presentation to the Cupertino city council in June, Steve Jobs said that the new campus could house over 12,000 people and over 7,000 trees.

And according to L.A. Times Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, it will be a “retrograde cocoon.”

In a piece published over the weekend, Hawthorne discusses his perceived problems with the expansive new campus. He uses Steve Job’s proclamation that the new building would be “like a spaceship landed” to criticize the proposed campus as “doggedly old-fashioned.”

Though the planned building has a futuristic gleam — Jobs told the council “it’s a little like a spaceship landed” — in many ways it is a doggedly old-fashioned proposal, recalling the 1943 Pentagon building as well as much of the suburban corporate architecture of the 1960s and ’70s. And though Apple has touted the new campus as green, its sprawling form and dependence on the car make a different argument.

Not only is he critical of the design and the implied anti-green effects of the new campus, but he also criticizes the Cupertino city council for not pressing Jobs enough on the details behind the new project.

At Jobs’ initial proposal, the city council appeared giddy with excitement. This led to a lot of chatter about their “fanboy” reactions to Jobs. Hawthorne asks why the council didn’t press Jobs about the actual architect behind the project. He discusses Jobs’ tight-lipped practices when it comes to design, saying –

In his appearance before the City Council he said Apple had “hired some great architects to work with — some of the best in the world, I think.” But he never mentioned the high-wattage name of Norman Foster or the London firm Foster + Partners, whose logo is stamped on the preliminary plans for the campus. (Those plans are available for download on Cupertino’s website, cupertino.org.)

It is a measure of Jobs’ tight grip on Apple’s reputation for in-house design innovation that even after hiring a celebrity architect like Foster he would keep that architect’s name under wraps; even now, three months after Jobs took the plans public in that council meeting, the Apple press office refuses to confirm that Foster + Partners indeed designed the project.

You can see Job’s proposal and the council’s reaction in this video -

In a nutshell, Hawthorne’s criticism is that the new campus “wraps its workers in a suburban setting,” away from the connection of the city. The new campus can be described as isolated and disengaged from civic space. Does the city council’s “enthusiasm” for the new project serve as a promotion of a “car-dependent approach to city and regional planning” that was good in the 70′s, but not so good anymore?

It’s all about connection, or in this case, the lack therof -

Still, the new Apple campus, which the company describes as “a serene and secure environment” for its employees, keeps itself aloof from the world around it to a degree that is unusual even in a part of California dominated by office parks. The proposed building is essentially one very long hallway connecting endlessly with itself.

What do you think? Does a huge suburban campus like the one proposed by Apple promote isolation?